1. Field of the Disclosed Embodiments
The disclosed embodiments relate to electronic flight bags (EFBs) for aircraft.
2. Introduction
Conventional aircraft systems require a hardware device, a Quick Access recorder (QAR) to be installed to facilitate the collection of Flight Operations Quality Assurance (FOQA) data. This information is used to determine the occurrence of an event or the parameters surrounding an event and this data is only accessible after the flight is completed. In addition it is a manual process to physically remove these data from the QAR.
An example of the type of data that might be collected is for the A300 aircraft where severe wind turbulence can cause severe tail cracks. The specific data that might be recorded included wind turbulence data accompanied by corresponding strain gauge data within the tail section itself. Data may be collected and the post-flight data analyzed to determine if fatigue or imminent failure is a potential problem before that incident occurs.
The issue is that the data must be physically removed from the aircraft and forwarded to the activity doing the analysis. Because of this the data is not available in a timely manner and cannot be analyzed so that an imminent problem can be dealt with. If the data is delivered in a more timely and efficient manner the effectiveness of monitoring programs can be improved.